Turn 8: You drop a land, and you have Fireball and Mana Seism in your hand. You've whittled your opponent down to 13 Life so far (With Lightning bolts, Disintegrates Blaze etc.) Tap all of your mountains, cast Mana Seism and sac all your lands, this leaves you with 14 mana, subtract one to cast Fireball and you win!

fireball is one of the more flexible X damage cards, rolling thunder/comet storm is only better if you want to take out a bunch of creatures or spread the pain in multiplayer, blaze/disintigrate/banefire is only better if you want to take out one target, disintigrate for creatures and banefire for players and on second thought *** blaze it should be an instant or bring something else to the table!fireball however is quite good for all these things.

I love the classic style, the art, and the brilliant simplicity of an enormous fireball that gets bigger and bigger the more mana you pump into it. The only thing I don't like is the overly convoluted rules text and the lack of any awesome and/or amusing flavor text. Swap the rules text with Blaze and give it some flavor and it might end up being my all time favorite card!

Fireball is an elegant finisher, a relic of a brutal past long forgotten, when players had Disintegrate and Mana Flare. Even without ramp, it can be a sinister end your opponent never sees coming. Yesterday I stalled out a game with countermagic and burn until I had 13 islands and mountains, and then sent my opponent to the next dimension!!